The Heat Is On In Saigon

Besides being constantly tired and having a million things running through my head, things are going great in my world. Rehearsal is going really well. I'm seeing some friends over the next couple of days for some going away type dinner dates since I won't see them for a while. And Charles is doing well, although I'm not getting to see enough of him since we're on opposite schedules. Other than that, things are peachy!

I'm about to crash but I've been thinking I'd share a little about some of the characters as we go along in this blogging journey. Today I'd like to discuss the character of Mr. Barley. Mr. Barley is the town grocer in East Bunnyhop. The funny thing about Mr. Barley is...he has a secret love of musical theatre! This reveals itself a couple of times in the show if you're paying attention. During the opening number there is a dialogue break where Ruby tells Mr. Barley that she is going to be putting on a show for her Grandma. Mr. Barley says "You mean with singing and dancing?" Secretly Mr. Barley is dying for Ruby to ask him to be in the show. He cracks me up during his few lines because I'm always thinking about what's going on in Mr. Barley's head and what he does at home when we aren't seeing him. I imagine him putting on his own shows in his bedroom and having great dreams of taking East Bunnyhop by storm with his fantastic flair for the dramatic.

The fact that he has this secret passion is really hilarious to all of the cast. Today we decided that Mr. Barley should start a community theatre in East Bunnyhop. We were discussing what shows he would want to do and the one that really struck us as hilarious was Miss Saigon. We decided that Mr. Barley would cast himself in all the shows in whatever part he wanted since it was his theatre, and in Miss Saigon he would obviously want to play the role of Kim, originally played by Lea Salonga. We got a pretty serious case of the giggles with this and I have a feeling that along our journey we will have fun thinking of other shows and roles that Mr. Barley dreams of in his spare time when he's not busy delivering groceries.

Last but not least, here is a picture of Brian backstage with the hobby horse he rides during the scene where I play a cowboy lobster.